North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon

Whew, way behind schedule here. Let's see if we can squeeze a bunch of updates into one:

1. Our one stop in North Dakota was a great one;  Medora. This was a cute little town tucked right up against Theodore Roosevelt National Park - South Unit. The North Unit is about an hour north and we did spend a day there. Highlights were:
• A dusty campground, mainly because they had suffered a flood from the Little Missouri Scenic River, which runs right along its border.
• A short bike ride into the town, which has a distinctive Western flare to it and several nice, western-styled restaurants.
• The Medora Musical: a romping, family oriented, musical featuring lots of western themes and music and a fiddler who can really play "Orange Blossom Special" like nobodies business.
2. In Montana, we stopped in Billings and spent one of our few free overnights in a Cabela's parking lot. Then we made our way to Butte, which was having a Folk Festival weekend. We also stayed there free in a city park, which they had made available to festival goers. The weather was great, the music was even greater, and it all took place in the historic "Uptown" portion of the city, right under the huge mining operation. Our last morning there we toured one of the older mines in the area before heading for...
3. Idaho. Here we stayed in Arco, the first city in the world to be lit by atomic power back in the 50s, when they were trying to see if there were practical peace-time uses for splitting the atom. This is close to Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is a 12,000 year old volcanic area, where vegetation is still trying to get a foothold. We also found a monument in the town to nuclear submarines and had a great time talking with one of the locals who was able to show us a lot of memorabilia which was of particular interest to Geoff.
4. Oregon was one of the main reasons from coming this way. We attended "The Rally" put on by Camping World and Good Sam and featuring about 25,000 camping units. We boon-docked and found our new batterie,s which we put in last winter, to be really up to the task. We had wonderful weather (again), some great entertainment, and even met a couple from our FMCA "Chai" Chapter, who were there drumming up some touring business. It was great to spend an evening with them. After the rally, we went up to the Mt Hood area and spent several days touring there, seeing the Columbia River Gorge and the Timberline Lodge on the side of Mt Hood. It was still cold enough at 6000 ft for there still to be skiing in progress.

Our next stop is Seattle, Washington, where Ellyn has some friends from her college days.

South Dakota

• Day 1 - Drove west on I-90 to Kennebec, SD. It was pretty much a long day of interstate driving. The Kennebec KOA campgrounds had been flooded to a level of about 3 ft. just 10 days before.
• Day 2 - We started our exploration of the Lewis and Clark trail by back-tracking slightly and visiting the Lower Brule Reservation on the Missouri River. We continued up along Lake Sharpe, which is this dammed-up section of the river to Pierre, SD (say "pier").
• Pierre is heavily sand bagged in the downtown area.
• A short distance north is the Oahe Dam, where water is being released at a higher rate than needed for generating electricity.
• On our way up US-83, we were forced to take a 40 mile detour due to bridge work, adding a good hour to our trip to Pollock, SD.
• Day 3, 4 - West Pollock Recreation Area is on Lake Oahe about 2 miles from North Dakota. We relaxed for an extra day here and put up our shelter because the bugs were a bit thick.
• The second day found us dipping in the lake right off the back of our site. The water was the perfect temperature; refreshing but not cold. Ellyn's water thermometer showed to it to be around 77F.
• That evening there were fireworks being shot up from the other side of the hill from us and so we enjoyed a little display to finish off our 4th of July. We also watched the NYC fireworks on delay from the west coast satellite feed.
• Day 5 - Headed north on US-83 to North Dakota, the seventh state on our trip.

Rochester, MN (AKA "Old Home Week")

• Day 1 - Set up camp at the Marion KOA about 10 minutes southeast of town and then joined an ex-coworker, Paul and his wife, at a Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Tai.
• Day 2 - A lovely day in Minnesota! Visited with Jeff and Emily Bond and their daughter, Laura, at their home in Rochester. Geoff did a couple of loads of laundry at the campground in the afternoon.
• Day 3 - A hotter and more humid day, one like we were used to seeing in MN in late June. Geoff ran the remaining loads of laundry we had accumulated. Visited with George and Pat Penokie at their home, went out for Mexican food with them and then took in the "Thursdays on 1st and 3rd" event downtown, with live music and vendor booths. George ran into several co-workers, both past and present, and their insurance guy.
• Day 4 - The hottest and humidest of our stay! Spent most of it in our air-conditioned RV, air-conditioned car, air-conditioned restaurants (lunch with friends Tom and Liane Peterson in nearby Cannon Falls), air-conditioned stores, and air-conditioned synagogues (B'nai Israel, our first congregation after our move to MN where we met Joe and Barbara Davidson some 33 years ago). The day ended in typical MN style with a rousing thunderstorm followed by cooler, dryer air.